Ross Hori

writer | designer | photographer

#Design

Design is a central part of the work I do. These posts cover a variety of topics, from how-tos and techniques, to pieces I’ve created.

Why I still play with Lego

Play: photography, road trips, art etc
Thursday, October 19th, 2023

I bought a Lego Classic set. One of the big ones in the yellow box that looks like a brick.

Every couple of days I dig in and slap something together. No particular purpose to it. It's just a random collection of bricks that slowly take shape. I rarely [keep reading...]

A Lego airplane with a blue body, grey wings and red jet engines

Calvin and Hobbes: bucking the merch craze and staying special

Notes
Tuesday, October 17th, 2023

I love Calvin and Hobbes because it meanders effortlessly between keenly observed commentary on human nature and farce. Sometimes it makes me think, and sometimes I snigger just because it's funny.

But while Bart Simpson had a hit record and you can stay in a Charlie Brown hotel (no, really, there's a Peanuts hotel here in Kobe), the naughty boy and his tiger never appeared on merch. Not official stuff anyway. If you've got a Calvin and [keep reading...]

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Can Google protect against copyright theft by Generative AI?

Work: writing, research and design
Thursday, October 5th, 2023

As someone who creates a lot of images (have you seen my Tumblr?) I'm obviously concerned about stuff getting nicked. Much of my work gets watermarked, but scraping it off is easy. Adobe Photoshop even ships with all you need to do it.

Google has come up with an idea: to embed a watermark deep into the image's code. Yes, images are also code. Each JPEG is a set of numbers that [keep reading...]

An ikea shark on a stool looking deep into the camera

Creating the AI Meditation image

Work: writing, research and design
Wednesday, October 4th, 2023

When I wrote my article on why we ask too much of AI, I wanted an image that reflected the thoughtful, if chaotic prose. I thought it appropriate to ask Bing Create to come up with the hero image that went with it.

What it offered wasn't particularly inspiring. Hands are a particular weakness of Generative AI, and something of an [keep reading...]

Graphic showing a neon figure deep in contemplation

Visiting Kobe Sannomiya? Look up!

Play: photography, road trips, art etc
Saturday, September 30th, 2023

Sannomiya's Central Street is worth a visit. It's the main shopping mall in Kobe, and the start of an almost continuous 2km long undercover walkway.

However, it isn't a purpose-built mall. Instead it has the feel of a regular street with a canopy installed. That gives it a lot of irregular buildings on either side. Some of these are just a couple of floors, others have [keep reading...]

Photograph of an upper walkway in an industrial retail structure

Check your stock images before posting

Work: writing, research and design
Friday, September 22nd, 2023

Before you upload a stock image to your latest masterpiece, give it the once over. Not a general glance, but a really deep, considered examination of what's going on.

More than a [keep reading...]

Photograph of a young woman on a white background wearing a white jumper gesticulating in a completely indescribable manner.

How do Japanese seniors use the mobile internet?

Work: writing, research and design
Friday, September 15th, 2023

This is a PDF based deck created for LinkedIn. It covers research from the Mobile Society Research Institute, a part of telco NTT DoCoMo, looking at how those in their sixties and seventies access the Internet.

I wanted to present the research with my own conclusions on LinkedIn as part of my networking [keep reading...]

Image of a hand holding a mobile phone with LINE open

How much does a photoshoot cost?

Work: writing, research and design
Thursday, August 24th, 2023

If you're looking to up your photography and move past the "selfie", you might consider a photoshoot. High quality, unique images can make your brand stand out. This is particularly true if you've been relying on product photos provided by suppliers or wholesalers.

So what does it take to have your own unique photos? It's a bit of a "how long is a piece of string" question. The most expensive shoot I've worked on was a couple of thousand pounds [keep reading...]

Illustration showing a speed light behind a Lumix camera and a polaroid of a blonde woman to the right
Graphic showing a slice of cake on a textured background.

Image
Wednesday, August 23rd, 2023

A graphic created as a follow-up to my article on using CAGRs in business planning, and shared on LInkedIn [keep reading...]

Visit Kobe: posters to promote a beautiful Japanese city

Play: photography, road trips, art etc
Monday, July 31st, 2023

I've often said the city of Kobe doesn't do enough to promote itself. Great city, loads to see and do, but sort of keeps a bit quiet about it.

We've got beaches, mountains, museums, parks, art galleries, hiking trails, a 2km+ long shopping mall, steam trains dotted about the place, a zoo, more temples than you can shake a stick at, loads of street art and one of [keep reading...]

Poster of the Tetsujin-28 statue, calling on you to visit Kobe

Glamour Bulgaria shows us the way forward with their AI generated magazine cover

Work: writing, research and design
Thursday, July 27th, 2023

The July '23 issue of Glamour in Bulgaria features Lisa Opie in a shocking pink Barbie inspired outfit. Except it's a photo that was never taken. Instead it was generated in a machine.

As I understand it, Opie supplied a tonne of photos, which were used to train an AI and prompted to generate images. These were then vetted (check the hands - [keep reading...]

Cover image from Glamour magazine in Bulgaria

Experiment: an image for a LinkedIn post

Play: photography, road trips, art etc
Thursday, June 22nd, 2023

My activity on LinkedIn is settling down. I'm treating it less like a social network and more like a business network. Aside from my issues with its selfie obsession, it's remained a valuable source of information, connections and sanity.

Part of my work there is to be a little more active in promoting myself (something I am notoriously bad at). I've experimented with a couple of different post formats, with carousels being particularly interesting. But there is still a [keep reading...]

Graphic designed for LinkedIn with the quote 'Google searches, ChatGPT and a business model canvas aren't substitutes for thorough market research

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